At Ventura High School, students expressing themselves through photography is nothing new. However, these past few years there’s been a considerable resurgence of young people bringing back analogue photography.

Film photography can be tedious and frustrating and takes a certain amount of patience, so why do teenagers love it so much?   

Senior Sarah Florez, who shoots on a Pentax K1000, stated the appeal of film being the delayed gratification of it, saying, “I like that once you take the picture you don’t see it right away, and once you wait a few weeks it’s fun to get an entire roll of film from all [of] your adventures and experiences from the past month or so.”

Interview with Sarah Florez by Lola Bobrow

https://soundcloud.com/cugrpress/sarah-florez

Film takes careful attention to detail and very precise manual focus.

Junior Claire Ortiz, owner of a Nikon N6006, said “[Shooting film] was definitely really confusing… There’s a lot of different options you can use. I’m still kind of figuring it out.”  

Interview with Claire Ortiz by Lola Bobrow

https://soundcloud.com/cugrpress/claire-ortiz

“My sister majored in photography so she kind of helped me through it,” said junior Connor Stevenson, who shoots on an Olympus XA. “Having a physical copy of it is so interesting,” he added.

“We’ve definitely seen the industry grow,” said the owner of DEXTER’S, a popular camera store about a block away from VHS. All student interviewees named DEXTER’S as the location they have their film developed.

Interview with Greg Montano by Lola Bobrow

https://soundcloud.com/cugrpress/dexters-interview

“I have people in their teens [and] people that are 90 years old in here developing film,” the owner said, crediting the appeal of film to be anywhere from the tangibility of it to the quality of colors.

For student film photography samples, view the slideshow below.

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